Abstract

This document argues that the United States was built on a constitutional logic that privileged dominion, property, and hierarchy over relation, care, and interdependence. That founding premise continues to shape American governance and public life, producing institutional fragmentation, civic distrust, and structural failures that cannot be resolved within the existing constitutional frame. Drawing on a relational ontology that understands social systems as interdependent networks rather than collections of discrete individuals, the work proposes an alternative foundation for constitutional design: that care must function as a core civic principle, and that durable governance requires structures that sustain people and communities rather than extract from them. Project Reconstitution outlines a framework for constitutional renewal grounded in relation, integrity, and mutual responsibility. It examines historical patterns, systemic failures, and contemporary democratic ruptures to demonstrate how the absence of care as a structural principle leads to predictable forms of inequality, instability, and erosion of public trust. The document concludes by proposing a set of relational premises that could guide future constitutional and institutional transformation, positioning care not as sentiment but as a structural requirement for collective survival.